Keeping Secret: Secret McQueen, Book 4 (25 page)

He looked at me, and that one look said it all. One look broke my heart. “No. You don’t belong to anyone. You don’t belong to me. Not anymore.”

The bag re-emerged from the closet, and he put his things in it. I sat in the chair by the door and watched him. The tears didn’t come now. I didn’t cry or scream. I didn’t say a thing as he packed up his half of the life we’d built together like all we were were items in a drawer.

When he went to the door and pulled on his jacket, I stood in the middle of the living room and let out one shuddering wheeze.

“I’m sorry,” he said, like apologizing would somehow heal the hole he was punching in my lungs.

“Then don’t go.”

He shook his head. “I can’t stay. Seeing him all over you… I can’t touch you with him on you. I can’t be here with the constant reminder. I love you, but I can’t be the loser who held on long after the battle was lost.”

“It’s not…”

“It’s over.”

“But—”

“I want to love you. But if I do it like this…it will kill me.”

He stepped through the open door and closed it behind him.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The following places are within a two-block radius of my house—a liquor store, a fae-run weapon shop and a grocery store. I visited all three in the hour after Desmond left me.

Leary Fallon—the merman or whatever the male version of a siren is—who ran the weaponry didn’t want to sell me a new gun. He looked at my streaked mascara and the paper bag with two bottles of Jameson whiskey in it and shook his head.

“I don’t facilitate suicides, McQueen.”

“Fuck you, Fallon. I’m getting married in three days.”

“Yeah, do you know what the leading cause of suicide is?”

“Being denied guns?”

“Divorce.”

“Bullshit. Just give me the SIG.” I made gimme fingers. I might have already opened one of the Jameson bottles on the way here. Maybe.

“What are you going to use it for?”

“Feral werewolves took my last one. I need a replacement.”

Leary was a weird-looking guy. Not conventionally handsome at all, but because of the whole dude-siren thing he had an unusual appeal to him. His face was too thin, his hair was too long and his eyes were the color of seaweed. He was wearing a shirt that said,
It’s Okay, Pluto, I’m Not a Planet Either.

Hilarious.

“I’ll pay double.”

“P226 or P229?” He unlocked the glass cabinet and put two guns in front of me. Nice to know money trumped concern for my life. For enough money he would probably turn one of those guns on me himself.

I almost dropped my bottles.

“You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Not quite. But I
had
had a booze-fueled epiphany. “226.” I tapped the gun on the right. “How much silver do you have?”

“Only three clips that would work for this. You’d have had to special order if you wanted more.”

“I’ll take them. Do you have a holster I could strap to my thigh?”

“Have you
seen
this gun? And your thigh?” He held up the big weapon then pointed to my leg. “You wouldn’t be able to run for shit.”

“I don’t need to run.”

“Then what the hell do you need a thigh holster for?”

“Because I can’t wear a shoulder holster over my wedding dress.”

A half hour later I emptied my bounty onto the loveseat.

First, two pints of Häagen-Dazs peanut-butter chocolate ice cream, which the sixteen-year-old at the grocery store assured me was the number-one choice of dumped women in the entire Hell’s Kitchen area. Next, the two bottles of Jameson, one with enough missing that my vision had gone wonky and the bottles appeared blurry, making it look to me like I had four of them. Lastly, a new SIG, three silver bullet clips and a thigh holster that came with the warning, “I hope it isn’t a mermaid gown.”

Leary had thought the joke was hilarious.

He thought a lot of things were hilarious…namely himself.

I cracked the top of one pint of ice cream, peeled off the protective covering, scooped out a massive spoonful and dumped a shot of whiskey into the crater left behind. Picking up my cell phone, I pressed the number six and went in search of a spoon.

“Hello?”

“I’m having whiskey and ice cream floats,” I announced. Even my voice sounded fuzzy. “Desmond left me.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Brigit brought reinforcements with her. In Brigit terms that meant
Dirty Dancing
and a bottle of white moscato wine. For when I decided to take a break from the hard stuff. I didn’t want to take a break from the hard stuff. Every time I stopped drinking for five minutes the booze started to work its way out of my system. If I stopped for too long, I might notice how Desmond’s Xbox was still here or how there was a pair of his runners next to the door.

If I saw things too clearly, I might have to acknowledge he was really gone and these things were just remnants. Reminders of the man who had walked out the door.

So I sat on the armchair…nope…I sat on the floor because the armchair must have moved at the last moment. Floor was comfier anyway. I reached for the Jameson and realized I’d emptied the first bottle already.

What time was it, anyway?

“What time is it, anyway?”

“Time for the soothing powers of Patrick Swayze.” Brigit took the empty Jameson bottle and replaced it with the wine.

“I don’t want wine,” I snarled.

“Sure you do.”

“Okay.”

She hit play on the DVD, and Baby started telling us all about her magical summer in the Catskills. I’d never been good at being a girl, but I had to admit there was a soothing power to the movie. By the time Baby and Johnny were having the time of their lives and showing the whole resort how dirty dancing was for everyone, the wine bottle was empty.

“Bri?”

“Yeah?”

“Is he really gone?”

“I don’t know.”

“I fucked this up, didn’t I?”

Brigit sat behind me, and I noticed the traitorous armchair didn’t dump her on the ground. Brutus.

“You didn’t do it on purpose.”

“But I hurt him.”

She started to braid my hair, her fingers tracing soothing paths along my scalp. Brigit was great at being a girl.

“You love him. Sometimes we hurt the people we love. If he didn’t really, really love you back, he wouldn’t have been hurt.”

“Huh.” I thought about the logic of her statement, and it made a funny sort of sense. “I don’t know how to fix it.”

“You need to give him time.”

“How much time?”

“It isn’t a set sort of number. Just give him time.”

“I need to know how much.”

She tugged my hair. “Secret, be patient.”

“Make up a number.”

“Twelve days.”

She said it too fast. She was making it up. When I told her so, she took the second bottle of Jameson away before I could open it.

We watched an infomercial for a juicer, and once it was over I was glad I drank blood instead of disgusting carrot-and-beet-juice blends. I was also sober, and the emptiness of my apartment opened before me so wide that my grief threatened to swallow me whole.

When Gabriel had left me, I’d promised to never let anyone in again.

Now I remembered why.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Keaty didn’t look happy to see me.

His mood didn’t improve when I sat down and said, “I need your help.”

He slipped the folder in his hand into his file cabinet and closed the office door behind me. “Where are you on the Gerry case?”

I knew he was going to get on me about my outstanding projects for him, like a parent who can never be thankful for all the things done
right
and only focuses on how you forgot to do the dishes. This was Keaty’s way, and I was prepared for it.

I threw an envelope full of hundred dollar bills on his desk. The money spilled out dramatically, all seven thousand dollars worth. Not our biggest payout, but seventy hundred-dollar bills looks pretty pimp when it’s fanned out on a desk.

“What’s this?”

“I closed the Gerry case.”

“Did you—”

I threw a folder on top of the money. “Paperwork is done.”

I’d actually completed the case a week before leaving for Louisiana but hadn’t taken the time to tell him.

He counted out thirty bills and handed them to me. “Good work.”

“I need your help.”

“I’m all ears.” Sure he was, now. Amazing how four grand in pocket could perk up someone’s listening skills.

“Someone has hired people to kill me.”

There was something in this sentence that
really
got Keaty’s attention, and it wasn’t that someone wanted me dead. Neither of us was terribly surprised by this.

“Hired? You’re sure?”

“I am.”

“What makes you think it’s a professional job?”

“First, they tailed my car halfway to Lucas’s mansion and tried to do me, Brigit and Kellen in on the highway. Then they knew when I’d be at Kleinfeld and tried to gun me down in
public
. He killed himself instead of being taken into custody. He clearly didn’t want anyone asking any questions. And two days ago they came after me in Louisiana. It’s professional work if they’re finding me places that aren’t part of my routine and they aren’t being subtle about their efforts.”

“Hmm.”

“Yes.
Hmm
indeed.”

“Under normal circumstances I would ask if you had any enemies, but…”

I threw another paper on his desk. This one was a list, and it was a list no human should have ever been given. “That’s the name of every werewolf in the Eastern pack. Not just Manhattan wolves,
every
wolf in Lucas’s pack. Someone isn’t happy about our wedding, and I think that someone is on the list.”

“So what makes you think it isn’t werewolves themselves attacking you?”

“The guy at Kleinfeld was human. And there was no way a wolf could have maintained human form in Louisiana to shoot me.
No
way. It had to be humans.”

“And you want me to…”

“I don’t know, Keaty. Work your weird P.I. magic. Look at bank records. See if there’s anyone on the list who writes crazy letters to Congress or has a brother who really likes collecting guns.
Investigate
.”

“My time is valuable, McQueen.”

“And my life isn’t?”

We stared at each other. I chucked my three grand back on his desk. Easy come easy go.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Work fast. I’m getting married on Friday.”

“Mmhmm.”

“That’s
tomorrow
, in case you’d missed the memo.”

“I hadn’t.”

“Your RSVP must have gotten lost in the mail. I’ll see you at The Columbia. Nine thirty sharp, the ceremony is at ten. Rent a tux.” I got up and pushed the list closer to him with one finger.

“I own a tuxedo.”

“Then dust it off.”

I was halfway between Keaty’s brownstone and Central Park when Sig called.

“If your young Mister Chancery is to be believed, I owe him several debts of gratitude. It would have been quite inconvenient to have to explain to the council why we needed a new Tribunal leader.”

“Nice to hear your voice too.”

“I trust your vacation was invigorating.”

“I feel like a new woman.”

“Yes, I can imagine.”

“Sig, not that I don’t love our little conversations, but is there something I can do for you?”

“Perhaps invest in a personal calendar.”

“Pardon me?”

“It’s Thursday.”

“Yes, and what’s your—?” Oh, Jesus. Today was the day the council would announce their decision about making Brigit a ward, and I’d totally forgotten. I felt like an asshole of epic proportions. “Is Brigit already there?”

“Waiting very patiently, yes.”

“I’m on my way.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

I wasn’t dressed for the council.

Jeans and a hoodie with thumbholes ripped in the sleeves didn’t scream
authority figure
, and I already had a hard enough time getting the council to respect my authority.

It didn’t help that when I said “respect my authority” in my head, it was in the voice of Cartman from
South Park
.

I needed to put on something more appropriate or I risked making them change their minds about letting Brigit become a warden. If my holey-kneed jeans were the reason she didn’t get the position, my asshole status would be assured.

I barged into my apartment, texting Lucas with one hand to tell him he’d have to see Kimberly without me, while my other hand pulled my clothes off. I was topless and halfway out of my pants before I realized I wasn’t alone.